Open Systems Data Protection - Best Practices

Review the following best practices before using the Open Systems Data Protection 7-Mode or C-Mode.

• You must run OSDP 7-Mode or OSDP C-Mode jobs using the replication workflow. This ensures that data from all subclients that are associated with the same OSDP 7-Mode or OSDP C-Mode storage policy get backed up at the same time and consume a single snapshot on the destination filer volume. The workflow sets up interdependencies between the subclient jobs that it coordinates, so the running time of the workflow is the running time of the subclient job that takes the longest time to finish.

• You can run OSDP 7-Mode job or OSDP C-Mode jobs from the subclient level, but the subclient consumes a snapshot just for itself on the destination filer.

• You must run the replication workflow immediately before and after any configuration change to subclients associated to the same OSDP storage policies. Configuration changes without running the workflow before and after might cause the dataset that corresponds to the OSDP storage policy to get non-conformant to the storage policy, failing jobs that run subsequently from the subclient level. Examples of configuration changes:

  • Addition of subclient content – Adding a new source volume to subclient content

  • Deletion of subclient content – Removing a source volume from subclient content

  • Addition of new subclient - Adding a new subclient to a OSDP 7-Mode enabled storage policy or re-associating a subclient to a OSDP 7-Mode storage policy

  • Deletion of subclient – Deleting a subclient

• Unless the workflow job is the next job to run, whenever a new volume is added to any subclient associated with the OSDP storage policy, jobs that are run from of the associated subclients fail because the dataset is not conformant to OCUM.

• For File System agents: do not associate default subclients with OSDP storage policy. Backing up the system state is not supported by OSDP 7-Mode or OSDP C-Mode, and because by default, the system state and the File System data are backed up by the default subclient for File System agents, backing up the default subclient with OSDP storage policy is not supported.

• Group subclients with similar application types in the same OSDP storage policy. For example, group SQL agents in one storage policy, and Oracle agents under another.

• Add complete volume/drive letter/mount paths as subclient content since OSDP 7-Mode or OSDP C-Mode does full volume block level incremental backup during every backup.

• Avoid using OSDP C-Mode storage policy with client computers running versions earlier than 11.0. Jobs will fail since the client computers send 7-Mode OCUM messages to C-Mode OCUM server.